chicagoareafire.com

From CFD Media on Twitter:

Commissioner Nance-Holt joined Chicago’s mayor and a host of partners & stakeholders for the grand opening of the Bauer Plummer Public Safety Training Center. This unique facility is a great resource for emergency personnel & and will be an anchor for the West Side community.

Excerpts from ChicagoDefender.com:

Wednesday, Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot joined Chicago Police Department Superintendent David O. Brown, Chicago Fire Department Commissioner Annette Nance-Holt, Alderman Emma Mitts (37^th Ward), Dr. Elizabeth Lockhart, and community partners to cut the ribbon on the recently completed Public Safety Training Center (PSTC). This cutting-edge training center will provide the cities’ emergency personnel with the most modern facilities to hone their skills for emergency response situations, investigations, and tactical operations.

The Public Safety Training Center features a six-story tower with each floor simulating different environment firefighters encounter daily, including apartments, hotels, and office buildings. The center also includes an indoor and outdoor scenario village replicating a four-way intersection common in most neighborhoods. The departments will use this scenario village to train on how to respond to various emergency calls.

The facility sits on a 30.4-acre former rail yard that, prior to the city’s purchase in 2017, had been sitting vacant for more than 40 years. In addition to the main academy building, the site will also host two minority-owned restaurants, Peach’s and Culvers, as well as a 27,000-square-foot Boys and Girls Club that are all slated to open this summer. The purpose of these establishments is to provide an economic pillar point for the community. Combined, the PSTC, the Boys and Girls Club, and the Culver’s and Peach’s restaurants represent approximately $170M in public and private investments in this community.

The PSTC is situated between two Invest South/West – one in Austin and the other in West Humboldt Park – that will see $95M in new private investment in the coming years. This investment will radiate from this building toward Austin and West Humboldt Park, and vice versa, connecting neighborhoods and creating a lively corridor with new businesses, living-wage jobs, and better housing.